A 27-year-old father-of-two kidnapped a seven-year-old girl from a Kmart toy aisle in North Lakes, Brisbane in December 2018.
Stirling Mervyn Free drove the seven-year-old to remote bushland in Pumicestone Passage and sexually assaulted her.
He then dropped the little girl back to the Westfield shopping centre.
Free was sentenced to eight years behind bars for kidnapping and molesting the child.
Now, the little girl’s mother has revealed how she felt when she realized her daughter was missing from the store.
The mother told she was running around the store, went to the pet section, went through to the toy section but couldn’t find her daughter anywhere.
She searched for her for more than an hour and then she suddenly reappeared.
The mother said she doesn’t know why he drove her back to the store and what he said to her little girl that made her follow the stranger man.
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9 NewsShe told 7News: “I started going around the shop… went to the pet section, went through to the toy section but couldn’t see her anywhere.point 232 |
We still don’t know why she was returned, probably never will know.point 62 | ”point 65 | 1
“For whatever reason, she followed him quite willingly.”
After Free was sentenced to eight years in prison, the mother released a statement saying Free tricked her daughter into following him and no child should ever have to go through this type of trauma.
She said: “No sentence will ever be long enough to make up for the ongoing effects this will have on her.”
She said they are trying to move forward and thanked the Queensland Police Service, the Queensland DPP and the Australian public for their support.
The court heard when Free was driving back the little girl, he broke down in tears as he felt horrible about what he did to the girl.
The little girl asked him ‘if he was okay’ when she saw him crying.
The family has created a GoFundMe page after the incident and asking people to donate as her daughter needs to be compensated to recover from trauma.
Watch the man stalking the little girl at the store
Video Credit: 9 News
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